CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

Professor McGonagall and Harry had started hurriedly making plans to evacuate the students, McGonagall then binding the Carrows and sending three sleek, silver patronuses bounding off ahead.

I was holding Luna's hand tight as McGonagall lead us all, Harry, Luna and I still under the Invisibility Cloak, through the school. We'd descended two floors before we came face-to-face with our first Death Eater of the night.

Headmaster Snape stepped out from behind a suit of armor, and I shuddered at the sight of him, at the sight of his black eyes, with their dead, cold look.

"Where are the Carrows?" he asked quietly.

"Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus," said Professor McGonagall.

Snape stepped nearer, and his eyes flitted over Professor McGonagall into the air around her, as if he knew that we were there. Beside me, I felt Harry raise his wand up too, ready to attack. I follow his example, lifting my own wand.

"I was under the impression," said Snape, "That Alecto had apprehended an intruder."

"Really?" said Professor McGonagall. "And what gave you that impression?"

Snape made a slight flexing movement of his left arm.

"Oh, but naturally," said Professor McGonagall. "You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot."

Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he was doing.

"I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors Minerva."

"You have some objection?"

"I wonder what could have brought you out of our bed at this late hour?"

"I thought I heard a disturbance," said Professor McGonagall.

"Really? But all seems calm."

Snape looked into her eyes.

"Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have. I must insist-"

Professor McGonagall moved faster than I could have believed. Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second I thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance. She brandished her wand at a touch on the wall and it flew out of its bracket. Harry yanked Luna and I out of the way of the descending flames.

The flames became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a lasso at Snape. Then it was no longer fire, but a great black serpent that McGonagall blasted to smoke, which re-formed and solidified in seconds to become a swarm of pursuing daggers. Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast.

"Minerva!" said a squeaky voice, and despite still being shielded by Harry, who was blocking Luna and I with his body, I was able to look around him at the approaching professors. Professors Flitwick and Sprout were sprinting up the corridor toward them in their nightclothes, with the enormous Professor Slughorn panting along at the rear.

"No!" squealed Flitwick, raising his wand at Snape. "You'll do no more murder at Hogwarts!"

Flitwick's spell hit the suit of armor behind which Snape had taken shelter. With a clatter it came to life. Snape struggled free of the crushing arms and sent it flying back toward his attackers. Luna, Harry and I had to dive sideways to avoid it as it smashed into the wall and shattered. When I looked up again, Snape was in full flight, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout all thundering after him. He hurtled through a classroom door and, moments later, I heard McGonagall cry, "Coward! COWARD!"

"What's happened, what's happened?" asked Luna.

Harry dragged Luna to her feet, his other hand reaching out to grab me, yanking me up too, and then we raced along the corridor, trailing the Invisibility Cloak behind us, into the deserted classroom where Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were standing at a smashed window.

"He jumped," said Professor McGonagall as we ran into the room.

"You mean he's dead?" Harry sprinted to the window, appearing to completely disregard Flitwick's and Sprout's yells of shock at his sudden appearance.

"No, he's not dead," said McGonagall bitterly. "Unlike Dumbledore, he was still carrying a wand... and he seems to have learned a few tricks from his master."

I shuddered violently as, looking out the window, I spotted a huge, bat like shape flying through the darkness in the distance toward the perimeter wall.

There were heavy footfalls behind them, and a great deal of puffing. Slughorn had just caught up to us.

"Harry!" he panted, massaging his immense chest beneath his emerald-green silk pajamas. He completely ignored Luna and I, instead focusing on Harry. "My dear boy... what a surprise... Minerva, do please explain... Severus... what...?"

"Our headmaster is taking a short break," said Professor McGonagall, pointing at the Snape-shaped hole in the window.

"Professor!" Harry shouted his hand on his forehead, "Professor, we've got to barricade the school, he's coming now!"

"Very well. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming," McGonagall told the other teachers. Sprout and Flitwick gasped. Slughorn let out a low groan. "Potter has work to do in the castle on Dumbledore's orders. We need to put in place every protection of which we are capable while Potter does what he needs to do."

"You realize, of course, that nothing we do will be able to keep out You-Know-Who indefinitely?" squeaked Flitwick.

"But we can hold him up." said Professor Sprout.

"Thank you, Pomona," said Professor McGonagall, and between the two witches there passed a look of grim understanding.

"I suggest we establish basic protection around the place, then gather our students and meet in the Great Hall. Most must be evacuated, though if any of those who are over age wish to stay and fight, I think they ought to be given the chance."

"Agreed," said Professor Sprout, already hurrying toward the door. "I shall meet you in the Great Hall in twenty minutes with my House."

And as she jogged out of sight, they could hear her muttering, "Tentacula, Devil's Snare. And Snargaluff pods... yes, I'd like to see the Death Eaters fighting those."

"I can act from here," said Flitwick, and although he could barely see out of it, he pointed his wand through the smashed window and started muttering incantations of great complexity. I could hear a weird rushing noise, as though Flitwick had unleashed the power of the wind into the grounds.

"Professor," Harry approached the little Charms master. "Professor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Have you got any idea where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?"

"Protego Horribillis- the diadem of Ravenclaw?" squeaked Flitwick. "A little extra wisdom never goes amiss, Potter, but I hardly think it would be much use in this situation!"

"I only meant, do you know where it is? Have you ever seen it?"

"Seen it! Nobody has seen it in living memory! Long since lost, boy."

"We shall meet you and your Ravenclaws in the Great Hall, Filius!" said Professor McGonagall, beckoning to Luna, Harry and I to follow her.

We had just reached the door when Slughorn rumbled into speech.

"My word," he puffed, pale and sweaty, his walrus mustache aquiver. "What a to-do! I'm not at all sure whether this is wise, Minerva. He is bound to find a way in, you know, and anyone who has tried to delay him will be in the most grievous peril-"

"I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great Hall in twenty minutes also." said Professor McGonagall. "If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill."

"Minerva!" he said, aghast.

"The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties," interrupted Professor McGonagall. "Go and wake your students, Horace."

We did not stay to watch Slughorn splutter, instead following after Professor McGonagall, who had taken up a position in the middle of the corridor and raised her wand.

"Piertotum, for heaven's sake, Filch, not now!"

The aged caretaker had just come hobbling into view, shouting "Students out of bed! Students in the corridors!"

"They're supposed to be you blithering idiot!" shouted McGonagall. "Now go and do something constructive! Find Peeves!"

"P-Peeves?" stammered Filch as though he had never heard the name before.

"Yes, Peeves, you fool, Peeves! Haven't you been complaining about him for a quarter of a century? Go and fetch him, at once."

Filch evidently thought Professor McGonagall had taken leave of her senses, but hobbled away, hunch-shouldered, muttering under his breath.

"And now- Piertotum Locomator!" cried Professor McGonagall. And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, I could guess with reasonable certainty that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same.

"Hogwarts is threatened!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "Man the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!"

Clattering and yelling, the horde of moving statues stampeded past us, some of them smaller, others larger than life. There were animals too, and the clanking suits of armor brandished swords and spiked balls on chains.

"Now, Potter," said McGonagall. "You, Miss Lovegood and Miss Swan had better return to your friends and bring them to the Great Hall. I shall rouse the other Gryffindors."

We parted from McGonagall at the top of the next staircase, the three of us turning back toward the concealed entrance to the Room of Requirement. As we ran, we met crowds of students, most wearing traveling cloaks over their pajamas, being shepherded down to the Great Hall by teachers and prefects.

"That was Potter!"

"Harry Potter!"

"It was him, I swear, I just saw him!"

Several steps ahead of Luna and I, Harry didn't even look back, and at last we reached the entrance to the Room of Requirement, the enchanted wall opening to admit us.

As the room came into view in front of us Harry slipped down a few stairs in shock. It was packed, far more crowded than when we had last been in there. Auror Shacklebolt and Professor Lupin were looking up at Harry, as were Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, Ginny's older brother Bill, the Beauxbatons' Champion Fleur, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

"Harry, what's happening?" said Professor Lupin, meeting us at the foot of the stairs.

"Voldemort's on his way, they're barricading the school- Snape's run for it. What are you doing here? How did you know?"

"We sent messages to the rest of Dumbledore's Army," Fred explained. "You couldn't expect everyone to miss the fun, Harry, and the D.A. let the Order of the Phoenix know, and it all kind of snowballed."

"What first, Harry?" called George. "What's going on?"

"They're evacuating the younger kids and everyone's meeting in the Great Hall to get organized," Harry said. "We're fighting."

There was a great roar and a surge toward the stairs, mingled members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's Army, and the old Gryffindor Quidditch team, all with their wands drawn, heading up into the main castle.

"Come on, Luna, Bella," Isobel called as she passed, Katie and Sue on either side of her. I exchanged a look with Luna, and she smiled softly, steel in her silvery eyes.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Still gripping Luna's hand tightly, we joined the streaming crowd back up the stairs.